“Don’t say that—”
“I wanted to be strong. I wanted us to walk and ride and journey, and live free young lives together. But it’s too late. It’s all too late. Everything is destroyed and finished.”
“It’s not, Sebastian. We can still do those things, and more.” I kissed his hands and tried not to cry. “I’ve come to help you. I promise.”
“No one can help me now. All I could hope for was to see you again. I’ve been thinking of you, writing to you…trying to reach you.” He began to cough weakly. I beckoned to Sarah and Helen, who were hesitating by the entrance to the room. They helped me to move Sebastian to a shabby sofa, but he grimaced as we touched him, as though every bone in his body were on fire. His eyes rested on the others and a tremor passed over his face.
“Do you remember my friends?” I asked gently. “Helen and Sarah are like sisters to me. They understand about the Mystic Way, about everything. They’ve seen you before; they were in the crypt that night at the end of last term. They helped us to escape. Do you remember?”
“Not really. Everything is going; everything is leaving me…everything except you.” He clutched my hand. “You found me, Evie. I didn’t think you would.”
“That’s all I’ve wanted ever since I got back to Wyldcliffe,” I said. “And now I’m here. Everything will be all right, I promise.”
“No…no…it’s too late. I went down to the Abbey. I saw that girl. She recognized me for what I am—a monster. And I saw the boy too. He loves you, Evie. I know he does. And you…you must forget me…. Walk with him in the sun….”
“Don’t say that! He’s just a friend—he’s nothing. And I love only you, Sebastian; you must know that. I don’t want anyone else. I’ll never love anyone but you.”
“But you must,” Sebastian said urgently. “You must live and love and have children—” He coughed again and gasped for breath. “You must travel and work and see the world, and do all the things I can never do.”
“I only want to do those things with you.”
“It’s over for me. It’s too late.” Sebastian touched my face and tried to wipe away my tears. “Don’t cry, my darling.” He shut his eyes and fell back onto the mildewed cushions, exhausted by the effort of speaking. “I want you to be free of me.”
“I don’t want that kind of freedom. I can’t let you go, Sebastian,” I said through my tears. “It’s not over yet.”
“You can’t stop this. The fading process is nearly complete. I am hanging on by a thread.” He paused for breath. “Soon I will no longer be myself. When the next new moon rises, I fear I will no longer be human.”
“Sebastian, it’s not going to happen; it can’t. I’m going to reverse the fading; I’m going to use the powers that Agnes left me to stop it. We just need a little more time.”
“There is no more time left.” The shadows in the room seemed to quiver blacker and deeper, like demons dancing and gibbering in the lost lands of the shadow world. I saw their hideous faces; I smelled the foul stench of their breath and sensed their vile desires for torment and unhappiness. Sebastian couldn’t become like them, no, no, no, never, never, never….
“I’ll make time,” I said fiercely. “Sebastian, don’t you remember what the coven did for you? The Dark Sisters each gave you a year of their lives to give you back your strength. I can do that too.”
“No!” His voice was harsh, but clear. “There will be no more soul stealing. I want you to live for me, not die for me. That girl…Laura, I killed her doing that…. I deserve what is happening to me now.”
“You didn’t kill her; it was Celia Hartle,” said Helen in a low voice. “It was my mother who murdered Laura. You shouldn’t blame yourself for that.”
“I blame myself for everything,” he groaned. “I took the beauty of the Mystic Way and twisted it. It was wrong. I broke Agnes’s heart.”
“Yes, you did wrong,” Helen replied. She was as stern as a judge, wrapped in her remote beauty, but there was pity in her eyes. “Agnes forgives you, Sebastian. She wants us to help.”
“Agnes….” He sighed. “I see her, surrounded by light, and Evie next to her—”
“Sebastian, you must listen,” I said. “Agnes told us to find the Book. She wants us to learn its secrets so that we can save you. I’ll become a healer, like Agnes. Do you have it?”
“The Book. Of course. I had forgotten about such things.” Sebastian looked up at Helen, his eyes bleary with pain. “Your mother—she claimed it from me when I was weak. She wanted to know everything, as I once did.” He laughed bitterly, then bent over and coughed long and low, before dragging himself upright again. “The Book is at the Abbey, with the High Mistress.”
“She’s not there,” I said. “She has gone.”
“I don’t believe that. I feel her searching for me, like a fire in the dark, trying to find a way to betray me. I no longer have the strength to fight her. I am wounded, Evie, right to my soul. Not even Agnes could heal me.” Sebastian closed his eyes and started to mutter to himself. “I was afraid of dying—wanted to live forever. And now dying isn’t the worst thing. I have lost myself…. Soon I will be a slave…a demon lost to humankind….” He suddenly called out, “Evie, Evie, where are you?”
“I’m here,” I murmured, frightened and horrified, yet glad to be at his side. “I’m here, Sebastian, I’ll take care of you—”
“Oh, Evie,” he said, quiet again, “how I wish I could die and go where Agnes has gone before me. All I want now is to pass into the next world, our true home, where even the poorest beggar is welcomed by death across God’s threshold. I do not want to be exiled in the shadows as an outcast. But the way is barred. I cannot follow Agnes. I cannot even put an end to my wretched life. And now I am falling into eternal darkness.”
“You mustn’t torment yourself like this,” I pleaded. “You must rest until I come back.”
“Yes, rest…rest.” He sighed. “To rest…and sleep…and die…. I’m burning…burning….”
I glanced around to see if there was any water in all the confusion of that crowded room, however dusty and stale. The water of life… I noticed a small glass beaker half-hidden by the paraphernalia on the writing desk and asked Sarah to pass it to me. The beaker was empty. I circled my hands around it and, closing my eyes, I reached out in my mind to the silent, mysterious lake by the ruins. For an instant I was there again, swimming in the cool water with Sebastian, my body entwined with his, tasting his wet skin against my lips.
The water of our veins…the rivers of our blood…the water of life…
When I opened my eyes the glass was full of water, as cool and pure as melted ice.
I wet Sebastian’s lips; then I bathed his face as gently as I could. For a moment his eyes shone clear and blue, straight into my heart. We clung to each other and kissed, as though our life together were just beginning, not coming to an end.
“Evie, it’s time,” I heard Helen say. “We have to go.”
I tore myself from Sebastian’s embrace. “I’ll be back.”
“You mustn’t come back!” he cried. “Not unless you can truly heal me. I don’t want you to see me at the very end. Promise me, Evie; do this for me. Don’t come back.” He grew wilder. “You must promise, you must!”
“Yes, yes, all right,” I stammered. “I promise.”
He seemed soothed and, making a great effort, raised my hands to his lips. “Let this be good-bye, girl from the sea,” he said haltingly. “Let this be my last memory of you, before I lose everything.”
But I wasn’t going to let that happen. As Helen gently tugged me away from Sebastian’s side, I knew that I wasn’t ready to say good-bye.
Twenty-eight
Time was running out. The silver watch that Sebastian had dropped outside his hiding place ticked quietly in my pocket. I had found him, but that wasn’t enough. That moment had passed, and now time was my enemy just as much as the Dark Sisters and their absent leader. When the next ne
w moon rises, I fear I will no longer be human….
Every day, every hour was precious in the search for the Book, and I was impatient with anything that got in the way of our search. We had surreptitiously examined nearly every volume in the library, but we had found nothing. Time…time…time…The days slipped by relentlessly and another week was swallowed up into the past.
When Sunday afternoon came again with its few precious free hours I set off reluctantly to the stables. I’d had a letter from Dad asking how I was getting on with my riding lessons. For his sake I felt obliged to continue with them, but they seemed a total waste of time. I could be searching for the Book; I could be doing something useful, I thought resentfully, as I dragged Bonny’s saddle from its stand.
“I think this belongs to you.”
Josh strolled into the tack room and handed me a small parcel. My heart sank. I didn’t want anything from Josh. I couldn’t accept what he had to offer. But it was becoming difficult to ignore the glow in his eyes when he talked to me, or the hurt in Sarah’s face when she saw us together. He’s nothing, I had said to Sebastian, and although I had meant it, I was ashamed of my heartlessness. I wasn’t the only one who had feelings. I tried to forget my own concerns for a moment.
“Oh…um, thanks, Josh. Great.”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to have a lesson today,” he said. “The ground is so frozen that the ponies might slip.” A heavy frost had turned the snow to hard, packed ice, and the school into an enchanted palace of white gables and sparkling towers.
“Okay, don’t worry about it,” I replied, secretly relieved.
“Aren’t you going to open your parcel?”
I fumbled open the twist of brown paper, and something bright and hard fell into my hand. For a moment, I didn’t recognize it, and then I remembered. It was the little locket from Uppercliffe Farm, lovingly polished until it glinted like a magpie’s treasure.
“Oh, thank you so much! I had thought I had lost this! Where did you find it?”
“On the floor of the stables. The ribbon had frayed. The locket must have fallen off without your noticing. I’ve had it put on a chain for you.”
“That’s so sweet. You needn’t have done that.”
“I know,” he replied softly. “But I wanted to.”
Josh picked the locket out of my hand, gently turned me to face the other way, and fastened the chain around my neck. It felt quietly intimate, and I was conscious of him standing tall and protective behind me. He loves you, Evie. I know he does…. I swept the thought away.
“Thanks so much,” I gabbled. “I really must go now if we aren’t having a class—”
“Wait a bit, Evie. There’s something else.” He stepped closer to me and his smile was warm and golden. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Oh, but I can’t—”
“Why not?” he asked. “I thought Sunday afternoon was free time.”
“But—”
“You can’t have your riding lesson, so I will lecture you about the noble art of equestrianism as we walk around the lake,” he said with a laugh. Then he became serious. “Please, Evie, I need to talk to you. Just a couple of minutes.”
I couldn’t say no. As we crossed the frozen courtyard together, I dreaded what he might say. The winter sun was hanging low in the clear, cold sky. Some of the youngest girls were throwing snowballs at one another, laughing and red cheeked. They looked so normal, shrieking and sliding in the frosty air. No doubt one of the mistresses would pounce on them at any moment for being so rowdy, but for a moment I envied them. I wished I could be eleven years old again, playing in the snow, carefree.
We walked past them and down to the lake. Beyond its glassy waters, the ruins were shrouded in pale, icy beauty.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
Josh pulled a piece of card from his pocket and gave it to me. I glanced down and saw that it was an old photograph, a portrait of a stout woman in a long skirt and a lace cap. She was no longer young, and her homely face looked into the camera with an honest, open expression. A small girl clung to the woman’s skirt, hiding her face but not her thick, shiny curls. You be good now, my chick…my lamb, a voice echoed in my head. I pored over the black-and-white image and saw that the woman was wearing a little locket around her neck. It was the same one that Josh had returned to me a moment ago. I had seen the woman before. I knew who she was.
“Martha!” I couldn’t stop myself from exclaiming her name. It was Martha—Agnes’s old nurse who had taken care of Effie at Uppercliffe when Agnes died. And the little girl next to her in the photograph was Effie herself. “Where did you get this?”
“How do you know Martha’s name?” Josh asked quickly. “And why do you have the same necklace?”
“I…um…” My mind was whirling. How could I possibly explain? “I don’t know. I found the necklace when we rode over to Uppercliffe.” That much was true, but I knew I didn’t sound sincere. I felt guilty, as though I had been caught with stolen goods.
“So it is the same one,” he said. “Martha lived at Uppercliffe. She was a distant relation on my mum’s side, going way back. We’ve got all these old photos at home of the old farm and the people who lived there.” He looked at me curiously. “I can understand how you might have found the locket up there, but how do you know Martha’s name?”
“I got kind of interested in…um…the history of Wyldcliffe, when I first came here. I looked up all this stuff about the Templetons, you know, Lady Agnes and her family. There’s a book in the school library.” I rattled the words out, making up more and more as I went along. “It had this photo of the old servants at Wyldcliffe, and she was in it—Martha, I mean. It said she was Lady Agnes’s old nurse. And I remembered her face and name when you showed me your photo just now.”
I paused for breath.
Josh stared at me, frowning slightly. “You’re a terrible liar, you know, Evie. What really happened?”
“Nothing,” I protested. Avoiding Josh’s glance, I stared up at the distant, unfriendly hills, where the sky was beginning to grow dark. I suddenly longed to be free of secrets, and to be somewhere light and warm and safe. I shivered. “Nothing I can tell you, anyway.”
“Evie, I’ve lived in the village all my life, and I know this place. People have always said crazy things about Wyldcliffe, about ghosts and tragedy and revenge and all that nonsense. It does have a strange past, though, and there are other rumors too, about the school. Things have been seen and heard, odd things going on at night. And a girl died here last year. She drowned in the lake.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, my voice barely audible.
“People are beginning to gossip about the way the school is run, especially now that the High Mistress has gone off like that. Some of the old folks in the village swear they have heard her ghost moaning and sobbing in the churchyard. And now these animals being killed. People are hinting about some kind of weird black-magic blood rituals.”
I tried to laugh it off. “They’re taking it all a bit too seriously, aren’t they? It’s probably just some nutcase killing those foxes.”
“Perhaps. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“I told you, I happened to find an old necklace. There’s no big mystery in that, is there?”
Josh took the photo and slipped it back into his pocket, looking unconvinced.
“Strange things happen at Wyldcliffe, Evie. Be careful.”
“I can take care of myself, honestly. But the locket—I should give it back to you. It belongs to your family.”
I began to unfasten it, but Josh stopped me.
“Keep it,” he said. “I’d like you to have it. It suits you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.” He was being so kind, and I was repaying his kindness with lies and deceit. I felt terrible.
“Here, have you noticed something?” Josh took the locket in his fingers, pressed the catch, and lifted out the little curl that Marth
a had kept all those years ago. He held it against my untidy hair. “It’s exactly the same color as yours,” he said softly. “What about that, Evie? Is there any mystery in that?”
There was nothing I could say. I hid the twist of hair back inside the locket, then pushed everything out of sight under my shirt.
“I’d better go.” I began to walk away, crunching across the snow. This was all getting too difficult. It was no good. I would have to write to Dad and ask him to cancel the riding lessons. I would say that I was nervous of horses, that I couldn’t cope with it…. He wouldn’t know that what I really couldn’t cope with was telling lies to a boy I liked, and who deserved more than I could give.
“Wait!” Josh caught up with me. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been prying, or making a fuss over nothing. It’s just that…well, I like you, Evie, and I don’t want you to be unhappy about anything.”
“I’m not unhappy.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth either.
“All right, I believe you, but if you ever need to talk, I’m always around. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Then that’s the end of the lecture. Let’s forget it.” He smiled at me encouragingly, and I couldn’t help smiling back. We began to walk slowly toward the school. Long purple shadows were creeping across the ground. Josh didn’t mention the locket again but chatted about his family and his riding and his plans to study. He asked me about my family too. Somehow it was easy to tell him about Mom and Dad and Frankie, and how much I missed them. We stood under the snow-laden fir trees, talking quietly, and by the time we got back to the stables it was nearly dark. The girls who had been playing in the snow had gone.
“Where have you been, Evie?” It was Sarah, waiting anxiously for me. “We were supposed to go to the library after your riding lesson. Did you forget?”
“Sorry, it was my fault,” Josh replied.
“No, it’s mine,” I said. “I should have remembered.” For the second time that day I had an uncomfortable feeling of guilt. How could I have forgotten that Sarah and I had arranged to check through yet another corner of the library in our quest for the Book? “Let’s go straight there. We’ve time before dinner.”